Tender Affections
by Felix The Tuxedo Cat
Summary: "Be strong. God gives His hardest battles to His strongest soldiers." Prussia and Germany bromance fluff. Modern-day, with acceptance of flashbacks. Kinda really depressing yet happy. Some Prussia and Austria bromance too. Multi-chaptered. T to be safe. R&R! I need motivation!
1. Chapter 1

**Hey guys, Felix here! I've been poking around on here for some fluffy Germany/Prussia bromance, but I haven't found a whole lot. So, I wrote my own! This is sorta really depressing but happy. I dunno, read it for yourself. REVIEEEEW! :D **

Tender Affections 

Prussia sniffed. He wiped his eyes, but the tears kept falling. He didn't really feel sad. He just did this now; it was part of his nightly routine. Say goodnight to West, brush teeth, get into pyjamas, feed Gilbird, turn off light, sit on bed and cry for an hour. He had no idea why he was crying. Well, that was a lie; he knew exactly why he was crying.

His depression.

He, the awesome Prussia, had been diagnosed with chronic depression. He took his anti-depression pills every day; he went out and did things all the time. He wasn't even in the house for most of the day. Whether he was hanging out with friends, working out, buying groceries, he was out. He didn't just wallow at home. But, nothing made him better. He always hurt; he always put himself down. Never out loud, but in his head he would just strike himself down every chance he got. _You're so stupid, Prussia. Nobody likes you, Prussia. You're so annoying, Prussia._ These were all things that ran through his head every day. Nobody but he and his doctor knew of his depression.

He always tried to encourage himself, but he would always end up crushing himself in the end. Maybe he had believed Germania's words a little too well. He thought back to the day when he and Vati were training.

**FLASHBACK (Prussia's P.O.V.) **

"Honestly, Prussia!" Vati roars as I lose my grip and drop the sword.

"I-I'm sorry!" I cry. Vati looks so angry. I don't like it when he's angry. It scares me.

"You are never going to be a nation!"

"I… I'm just a kid…" I mumble, but Vati hears me. I didn't want him to hear me. He grabs me by my collar and lifts me up to his face. "No. You are not just a kid. You are a country. And it is time you start acting like one!" He throws me to the ground and I land in a bush. "No supper tonight. You come home and go straight to bed."

"Yes, Vati…" I say sadly. He walks away and I wait a bit to follow him. I don't want to go home.

**END FLASHBACK**

Prussia sniffed again. He desperately wanted some form of comfort. He began to think of Canada; oh, he loved Canada so much. He smiled, but then remembered why he had never made a move on him. He couldn't do that to France.

_I hate myself… _

Prussia rubbed his rough hands together. He could feel the tingling in his palms.

_Austria… _

His heart almost stopped as he thought of all the things he had done to his little brother. The War of Austrian Succession, all those treaties he left him out of, all the mean things he had said to him, bothering Hungary. He especially hated the things he said and did to Hungary. Little West…

_All the things he went through, and I was never there… _

He sobbed quietly, looking down at the back of his hands. He used his finger to gently trace a loose vein from all his years of playing the flute and piano. From all the triggers he had pulled.

That one hit him hard. He laid down on his bed, covering his face with his arm. Of course, Austria had simply seen all those things as plain-old brotherly love, and Hungary had basically forgotten all the things Prussia said. Germany loved and completely adored Prussia, looking up to him even more than the Roman Empire. However Prussia was, as always when it came to these things, completely clueless.

_Piyo Piyo _

Prussia took his arm away from his face and looked to his left. Gilbird had flown down from his perch and landed next to Prussia on his bed. Prussia smiled sadly and wiped the tears from his eyes, rolling onto his left side.

He gently rubbed Gilbird's head with his finger. He sniffed. "Oh, I love you Gilbird. So, so much." Gilbird replied with a little _Piyo_. Prussia smiled and continued to pet the little bird. Gilbird stretched, ruffling his feathers before settling back down again and quickly falling asleep from Prussia's tender affections. Prussia gently lifted him up and set him pack on his perch. He laid down in bed and pulled the covers around him, grabbing his iPod and setting his black headphones over his ears. He looked through his podcasts before deciding on "The Shadow". He pressed play on the first episode and snuggled into his bed for the night.


	2. Chapter 2

Tender Affections

Chapter 2

"Hm." Gilbert sighed slightly, turning the page of his book as he sat on the black couch of his and Ludwig's shared livingroom. His depression had been biting at him again so, to take his mind off it, he decided to grab a book and read. Beside him on the couch sat Berlitz, one of Ludwig's three dogs. He was a golden retriever, and a big one at that. From time to time Prussia would gently stroke the dog's head out of habit and Berlitz, being the attention-hound he was (no pun intended), would pant and nuzzle up into Prussia's hand.

However, Berlitz's petting was interrupted as Ludwig and his two other dogs Blackie (a German shepherd) and Aster (a Dachshund) walked behind the couch. Well, Ludwig walked, Blackie and Aster were prancing around his feet. Ludwig was cooing about how they wanted to go outside and the dogs were yipping and barking playfully at him. He opened the sliding back door and exclaimed something long the lines of "Unleash the hounds!" and Berlitz shot up off the couch and out the open door, along with the other two canines.

Gilbert laughed and rolled his eyes as Ludwig came and sat down beside him. "Those dogs are going to get all muddy and leave tracks all over the house." Gilbert pointed out. While he was a fair bit looser than his little brother, he was still a stickler for neatness, punctuality and responsibilities*.

Ludwig looked out the large window to the back yard. The sky was still clouded over from the rainfall earlier that morning. He smiled as he watched Blackie jump about happily in a mud puddle. "Ja, but I don't mind. I like seeing them have fun."

Gilbert shook his head and smiled, turning a page in his book. "You spoil them too much."

"I do not!" Ludwig denied, looking at his bare feet. "Besides, you spoil Gilbird just as much."

"Nein, I don't. I feed him when he is supposed to be fed, I give him sufficient exercise, I give him a proper amount of time out of his cage and he is fully trained. You, you just feed your dogs whenever they look at you, you let them lay around, they don't even have a kennel and you let them crap everywhere."

Ludwig stifled a laugh at Gilbert's last statement. "Hey, I feed them when they're hungry, they get plenty of time outside and are quite active, they do have a kennel and the only reason Aster did that was because I was gone for a while and nobody was home to let him out."

"See? You do spoil them; you're covering up for them."

Ludwig smiled and shook his head. He laid down on the couch, resting his head on Gilbert's thigh. "Big Bruder?"

"Hm?" Gilbert replied, not looking away from the black text in his book.

"Can you come with me to the meeting tomorrow?" Had he asked anybody else that, he either would be blushing redder than one of Antonio's tomatoes or he wouldn't have asked them at all. However, he felt very comfortable and secure with his brother and felt he could ask him anything.

Gilbert put his book down beside him and ran his rough fingers through Ludwig's soft, loose hair. "Ja, of course. How come?"

Ludwig shrugged, scratching his chest through his black undershirt. "I don't know, it was just really boring last time and everybody was arguing…"

"You need some sanity?" Gil asked, looking down at his little brother with a cocked eyebrow and his signature smile.

Ludwig smiled also. "Ja."

Roof, Roof!

Ludwig sighed and got up, pulling away from his brother's tender affections. He opened the sliding back door and the three dogs came in, sitting and staying by the door. They knew the drill for muddy weather. As Ludwig wiped their paws with the deep green towel next to the door, Gilbert got up and headed for the kitchen which was just off the living room. "I'm gonna make some lunch. Wurst sound good?"

Ludwig checked his watch, surprised it was already lunch time. "Uh, ja, that's good. Oh, and, by the way," Ludwig called after the albino, "Roderich will be coming over for dinner and staying the night. He has to come to the meeting tomorrow too, but he can't get a ride, so he's going with us."

"Ist gut," Gilbert replied, nodding to himself. He pulled the sausage out of the fridge as Ludwig walked behind him. He heard Ludwig open the door to the basement and throw the towel down, as the laundry room was downstairs. "What time is he coming over?" Gil asked as he put the wurst onto a frying pan.

"Uh, he said about half to five**," Ludwig replied, "He absolutely insisted on cooking dinner. And Elizabeta is coming over also, but only for dinner."

Gil nodded. Knowing Elizabeta and Roderich, this would be a fairly eventful night.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: Here's what I put the * in for.**

*** There was a term a while ago, it isn't used very much anymore, called being an Old Prussian. It was applied to people who were overly neat, overly punctual and is constantly stressing over responsibilities.**

**** In German, the half-hour is counted to the next hour, not the past hour as it is in English. It's fairly German for someone to tell the time like that, so I figured Germany would say that. :)**

**EDIT: LOL I just noticed that I used countries' names in the first chapter and human names in the second! Ah, well, I like it better with human names and he first chapter doesn't really make sense with human names. Well, it's a human-name fic from now on! Why? BECAUSE IM DA AUTHOR AND I CAN DO WHAT I WANT. Well, it's 1:15 in the morning and I've got school in the morning. See y'all!**


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